Tens of thousands of rail passengers suffered disruption today when the West and East Coast main lines had to close.

The West Coast route came to a halt at 9.30am - only hours after Network Rail announced the system was up and running following engineering work over the bank holiday weekend.

A loss of power at Milton Keynes forced all Virgin Trains services to and from the North to start and finish at Rugby and Northampton.

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Trains immediately began to stack up on the main routes from Scotland to London. There was a train shuttle service between Euston and Bletchley.

The East Coast main line came to a halt after the 6.45am Skipton to King's Cross train killed a person on the line at Grantham. Commuters coming into Waterloo main line station also suffered delays caused by a signal failure at Wimbledon.

NR had been carrying out weekend engineering work at Milton Keynes but a spokesman said it was not connected with the loss of power.

He said: "The work was at the station, building a new platform, there is no connection between that and the power failure."

NR later introduced hand-signalling in the Milton Keynes area which allowed two trains an hour through instead of four.

East Coast services were later restored but with knock-on delays.

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During the holiday weekend large sections of track serving Waterloo and Liverpool Street were closed.

Many travellers had feared a repeat of the chaos following the Christmas and Easter holidays when NR engineering work overran.

Chris Bolt, the Rail Regulator, imposed a £14 million fine on NR for failing to complete the work on time.

The NR spokesman said: "All our engineering work was completed on schedule - much of it even finishing early."